OPINION 4 Tuesday, September 16, 1980 The Michigcn Daily Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. XCI, No. 11" Ann Arbor, M! 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of The Daily's Editorial Board An anal fixation: It's not what it's cracked up to be plea for. safety's sake 'ARLY SUNDAY morning, an Ann Arbor woman was stabbed to ith outside her front door not five es from campus. Police have poin- out similarities in the methods and tims of the crime with those of two er murders over the last five mon- rhe streets are no haven of safety der normal circumstances, but. ports of violence are rare enough' it some might fall into a sense of curity as they go out about their siness after dark. We think such a nse of security unwise and ngerous, particularly at this time. We urge women-and men-to take special precautions, especially until the murders are solved and the killer or killers apprehended. Do not walk alone at night, even in the seemingly safe areas around your homes. Be con- scious of suspicious activity. And above all, don't be reluctant to call for assistance whenever it seems even marginally warranted. One reaction people- might have to the killings is an angry feeling of im- prisonment when they have to stay in- side rather than walking to a movie, a friend's, or a class. But we urge that city residents not let that justifiable anger interfere with simple common sense. Let's not make it any easier for the killer. If college students have a special penchant for anything, it is self-diagnosis. You don't have to be a pre-med to know that a sore throat, runny nose, and aching head means you've got the most popular disease on cam- pus-mononucleosis. In fact, I went to Health Service last year with a wrenched ankle and the receptionist asked me whether I had "mono" or "other." OF COURSE, THE self-diagnosis craze is not limited to physical ailments. While we freely bandy about terms like "mono" and "herpes," we play even faster and looser with psychological jargon. Anyone who has had Psych 171 will psychoanalyze you at no charge. Not to be one to buck the trend (and having earned my self-diagnosis degree in Psych 192), I have decided that I have a genuine anal fixation in the best Freudian sense of the word. ACTUALLY, TO BE quite frank, acquain- tances have been calling me "anal" (or some variation thereof) for years; I have only recently agreed to accept the evidence and label myself. 0 10 Witticisms By Howard Witt A positive evaluation IT COULD be a very good year for the Michigan Student Assembly. So far, MSA-along with several ad hoc student groups-has successfully pushed for the resumption of late bus service to North Campus and the con- tinuation of late hours at the Un- dergraduate Library. And now, the all-campus student government appears to have suc- ceeded in a prodigious effort it started last year-a course evaluation project. MSA President Marc Breakstone has. estimated that two-thirds of the LSA students who registered at CRISP last spring completed an MSA course evaluation questionnaire, which asked them to rate the workload, pace,,and instructors of courses they had taken during the winter term. A special computer program to analyze the statistics is now being prepared, and the tabulated results of the questionnaires should be available in time for winter term registration. Certainly the course evaluation sur- vey is not scientifically conclusive: It does "not present statistically valid responses. Nor will the results be very useful from the faculty's viewpoint: The questions were assembled rather casually and there are no essay-type responses. But the project should not be discounted for these reasons. As a first attempt at a student-administered course evaluation program, the sur- veys-flawed though they may be-will prove helpful to many LSA students in course and professor selec- tion. One must remember that MSA was virtually compelled to develop its own course evaluation program because the University has repeatedly refused to provide such an essential service. Currently, departments across the University are merely "encouraged" by the administration to conduct evaluations. Because these University. evaluations are inconsistently ad- ministered, because various professors attach varying importance .to them, and because the results are of- ten not available for student inspec- tion, they are utterly useless to studen-: ts searching for some indication of what a given course is like. In fact, a vicious course evaluations circle has developed: Students often don't take course evaluations seriously because they see them as ineffective and inconsistent; faculty members resist attempts to create a more uniform evaluation program because they see students scoffing at the present system. Worse, some departments have been relying on the truly skewed results of the' inconsistent evaluations as in- dications of teaching ability for use in promotion and tenure decisions. MSA, by creating its course evaluation program, is accurately ad- dressing the concerns of its student constituency. We- hope new improvements in and expansions to the MSA program will be made, and further, that the University will respond to the MSA effort by creating a campus-wide course evaluation system. According to psychoanalytic definitions, an anal character exhibits a pattern of per- sonality traits resulting from habits, at- titudes, and values formed when he or she was a child learning control of defecation. An "anal expulsive" person often exhibits conceit, suspicion, and ambition; an "anal retentive" person is frequently meticulous, parsimonious, orderly, and obstinate. The two are not mutually exclusive, however: Freud's psychology leaves room for the in- dividual who exhibits both retentive and ex-. pulsive tendencies simultaneously. I DON'T REMEMBER much (consciously, at least) about my first two or three years-the period that Freud considers the anal stage of development. Occasionally I will have fleeting visions of a special .e'd ~ "potty stool" or a wad of toilet paper placed into the bowl toward which I was encouraged-- to "aim," but it all fades away very quickly. As I was looking through some old grade school papers I organized into a file long ago (anal retentive), I ran across the evidence of my first anal act: a two-page paper about Abraham Lincoln, written in Mrs. Stunkel's first-grade class. Upon that wide-lined paper, sandwiched between two sheets of red con- struction paper with a crayon-colored visage of Lincoln on the front, stands an incredible example of first-grade plagiarism. Somehow I managed to get past Mrs. Stunkel's aging eyes "Lincoln was an industrious boy, always willing to assist his family." Although it's a little late, I would now like to give proper credit for that too-sophisticated line: It came from the schoolchild's helper, Encyclopedia Brittanica. JUST ABOUT THE time I was carefully printing my Lincoln thesis, I began a neatness fetish that I have since not been able to shake. Every morning I would close the door to my perfectly arranged room and not use it again until I was ready to go to sleep. Friends would comment that my room didn't look lived-in; they were right-it wasn't. I could go into my fear of germs or my aversion to French kissing (Would you swallow someone else's spit?) but I wish to get on to something infinitely more anal: my obsession with toiletpaper. Most peoble hardly give a second thought to toilet-paper;they don't care if it's "puffy" or "pillow soft" or "stroft." I, however, live for, commercials with that lovable old Mr. Whip- ple. I will not go on a camping trip if it means being away from indoor plumbing and Char- Daily Photo by JIM KUZ min for more than wo days (my retentive limit). I cannot deal 'ith the 51/2-inch squares of toilet paper soplied in the men's washroom in the student Publications Building. 'And when' travelled to Europe three years ago, I fkred customs officials might stop me for muggling American papers. CLEARLY MY FARS of arrest for espionage were justied: The Europeans may have NATO, but iey don't -have effec- tive toilet papers. The (rmans use a coarse, almost corrugated vaety; the French,. a fragile, stringy paper ,hey are extremely backward plumbing-wi,; anyone who has been to Paris and has sen a "pissoir" would agree); and the proud Eglish, waxed paper squares (in public retrooms at many palaces, the waxed paer squares bear "Property of Her Majest-the Queen" in red lettering). I don't know what terble trauma I ex- perienced as a child goingthrough my anal stage, but something has oviously knocked my sensibilities out of whac It is one thing to be able to diagnose my an preoccupations, but it is quite another to actrlly be a slave to 'my bowels. Makes me kind of wish I ha mono. Wir Opinion Page Co-EditoiHoward is widely regarded as imalanced. column appears every TuesQ. Witt His LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Springsteen ticket editorial slam med THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL r G\ T " To The Daily: On Friday (Sept. 12) The Daily ran a lead editorial questioning the ticket policies for concerts in Ann Arbor. These criticisms cen- tered around the three day line last week at Crisler Arena for Bruce Springsteen tickets. As the concert goer who was in charge of the line's list, I must comment on the editorial. I started the line on Tuesday night. At that point we thought tickets were going on sale on the following Monday. This meant six days on line. Later that night I was joined by 21 others who spent the night with me. We agreed that there was to be one body in line at all times for each space on the list. This meant that people could rotate with friends. Since there was a limit of six main floor seats per person, people went about finding groups of six friends who could run four-hour shifts once a day. This is nothing outrageous. Whether one spends four hours a night for three days or twelve hours the night before (the least you could expect to wait for a top show) doesn't make much of a difference. This way everyone could make classes and go about their business except for that four-hour shift. The Daily calls this unfair. But what could possible be fairer? This was anyone who really wanted a ticket could get one and nobody ends up with a whole fist- ful of tickets to scalp. The Daily suggests that Major Events prohibit camping around the Criisler box office. Do you think that would have stopped people who were planning on staying six days? If we had to stand in a straight line, we would still have been there. sus of everyone there. It was the most amazing group of people that I've ever been in line with. People shared blankets, food, beer, and anything else they had. These people reflected the spirit of Bruce's music and this devotion is the reason it is so hard to get tickets. The Daily claims that anyone who was not able to stand in line for three days couldn't get tickets. Wrong. Major Events provided these people with an alternative. They put tickets on sale at all CTC outlets, including Hudson's in Briarwood. The Daily claims that those unwilling to spend three nights in line couldn't get tickets. There were obviously plenty who WERE willing to sleep out. Don't these people deserve the tickets? The Daily suggests prohibiting camping and lists. They call on people to "refuse to recognize the lists and roll calls, and then natural selection would take over-you drop out of line and" you lose your place." This is a totally irresponsible statement on the part of our student newspaper. The night before tickets went on sale, scores of people from outside the Ann Ar- bor area came down to Crisler. They sat down in front of the gate and made their intention clear. They were going to crash the gate, push their way to the front and make off with the best tickets. Believe me, these were people who could easily have done it. What would have hap- pened then? Fights break out, people get hurt, the cops are called and everybody loses. Is this The Daily's idea of fairness? They call this a "more rea- sonable fashion of survival of the student newspaper to air their gripes is irresponsible and a misuse of their position. Our "primitive Springsteen society" worked. My friend and I who were running the list both have experience in concert promotion and crowd control, and thus we enabled the 800 people to relax and not to worry about having others crash the line. They were able to have a good time. Some studied, some partied, but everyone relaxed. Nobody wanted to stand in line for three days. Certainly not I, who started the line, but we made URHC lauds To The Daily: The University Residence Hall, Council, which is the represen- tative body for the 10,000 residen- ts of University Housing, would like to commend the North Cam- pus Bus Protest Committee for its part in reinstating the late- night bus runs to North Campus. The Council agreed that the bus cutback was an infringement on the rights of students living in North Campus Housing. The University has been faced with the economic hardship of a drop in state support this year and must tighten its budget con- siderably. This will understan- dably necessitate the cutback of many programs throughout the University. Students, staff, and faculty will have to bear the bur- den of this financial hardship. However, programs that direc- tly involve students ahould not be deleted or diminished without student input into the matter. This was true of food con- the best of it and turneit into a party for 800. I do wanto send my sincere thanks toKaren Young and the Major Evnts of- fice for their support and elp we4 so desperately needed Ad for putting tickets on sale thrt days early; my friends for briging food, clothing and the mor sup- port to get me through thelong nights; and most importatly, the 800 beautiful people whbeept me company. We had a teat party. There will be an fen bigger one on Oct. 3. -Marc Kenen September 15 bus success, was noted that Marc Breakstoi, president of MSA, indicated tit the decision to cut back bus s- vice to North Campus was mat without student input. Apparel tly, MSA was not informed of th decision and neither was URH(e It is clear that the Universit must cut back certai programs, but if the Ac ministration continues to mak decisions that affect so man; students, without student input there could be trouble ahead ii the coming months. At this time, URHC would like to encourage residents of Norti Campus University Housing, at well as residents of Central Ca pus, to run for office a representatives to the University Residence Hall Council, so that there will be guaranteed student input into administr ative decisions. URHC is not a radical or pressure group, however, iUs a direct liason between te residents of University Housig and the Housing Administratin.